


Meditations at Dawn: Pike

by kianspo



Series: Don't Stop Believing [4]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 03:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10935858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kianspo/pseuds/kianspo
Summary: Set in DNSB verse. Some time into the future after the events of DNSB, Chris Pike gets an update about Kirk and Spock's official change of status.





	Meditations at Dawn: Pike

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a post-DNSB cycle that will offer different POVs to balance out Spock's. This one will not be chronologically first, in fact, it will be pretty far removed in the future. I just finished it first, because, well, there's no logic to me. :p 
> 
> Nobody beta'ed this. And I stole a line from Lois McMaster Bujold's 'The Warrior's Apprentice' (which is an amazing book from an amazing cycle and you should all read it) because I couldn't come up with anything better. Don't judge me, it just worked.

It hits my inbox when the figures on the chronometer are just shy of 0500 hours. Don’t ask me what I’m doing up and about at this hour. I frown, scanning through the first few lines. 

_Notification of the change in marital status_  
_Subject: James T. Kirk, USS Enterprise, captain, commanding officer_  
_Subject: Spock, USS Enterprise, commander, first officer, science officer_

It happened then. They’d gone and done it. I’m supposed to say congratulations, and I will. At some point. Right now I can only sink back into my chair and close my eyes.

McCoy must have sent it. There’s no one else who would. Spock certainly wouldn’t. He’d let me find out from the official command bulletin, and he knows damn well I never read those. It’s a smart move, I suppose, going for it. By making it official, they comply with the rules, but the Admiralty isn’t going to publicize this. That’s just asking for trouble of every kind imaginable. They’re ensuring they will never be separated, unless some truly biblical disaster strikes.

Have they heard the rumors, I wonder? USS _Hermes_ is almost completed, Starfleet’s pride and joy, a new science vessel that will serve as an important reminder. We’re explorers, not conquistadors. What? There are people who still believe in that.

Spock’s been strongly considered for the position of captain. Is being considered. I was in the room when someone suggested his name to Nechayev. She approved the offer to be made, but the moment the others were out of the room, she looked at me and smirked. _‘So,’ she’d said. ‘Any ideas on who we can_ actually _get for this position?’_ She was daring me to comment, but all I said was, _‘I’ll look into it.’_

I’m not sure if she’d picked up on the romance part of it. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t blame Kirk for giving them away, because he hasn’t. Spock, naturally, never would. But Nechayev, not that she and I would ever be friends, is a damn smart woman. Even if she’s unaware of the personal undercurrent in this one, she knows no one can pry those two apart with a crow bar.

Though who am I kidding, of course she knows. I don’t know what the trick there is really, but it’s almost like after you’ve passed a certain level, you will look and you will know. They have the good taste and sense not to be overt about it, but it’s there. It would still be there, undeniable and unbreakable, even if they weren’t sleeping with each other. Maybe that’s why Nechayev isn’t putting up a fuss about this one the way she normally would. You can, in theory, forbid them to have sex, but there’s no way you can control the rest of it. Clearly, she knows this, too.

If they sent it to me now, it’ll hit the bulletin by morning. I almost want to be there when Komack reads it. I know it’s petty. But the man couldn’t stand Kirk from day one, not helped at all by the fact that Kirk proved to be right most of the time and get away with it somehow when he wasn’t. To cap it all, Komack’s equipped by the set of morals sent to him straight from a medieval monk of some ascetic order rapidly making his way through the ranks of the Holy Inquisition. Thank God, we now have psychological screening at the Academy. It’s a work in progress, but at least it’s getting there.

I scan the form closer, and stop at a conspicuous blank next to _Witnesses_. Then, I laugh. But of course. This is a Vulcan bonding, not a human marriage. No witnesses are required. How would they even witness? Human marriage requires witnesses because it is, essentially, an illusion. There are no bonds tying two people to one another. It’s a fiction that exists in their heads and is now shared with the others.

Vulcan bonding means actual changes in brain chemistry and physiology… and would require a qualified physician to ascertain its validity. In theory, with McCoy’s help, Kirk and Spock could be faking this. There’s no way to catch them in the lie if they are. I don’t think they are, of course, but it’s an intriguing possibility…

Could Spock and I have pulled it off years back? Doctor Boyce would have supported me, no question. Could I have convinced Spock? Should I have?

But no. I didn’t tell him no because of whatever the bond entailed. I told him no, because I didn’t want him on my ship anymore. Which is insane, because I know perfectly well that it’s the crew that makes the captain, and Spock was a damn fine officer, possibly the best I’d ever worked with, barring Number One. Yet I wanted him to leave. I’m really proud of that. One of my rare, and therefore treasured, unselfish moments. 

Staying with me back then would have killed his career. There were plenty of rumors about us already. He was supposed to be building a reputation then, and he was, or rather his work was doing it for him. Being tied down to me in everybody’s minds would have destroyed that. 

It harmed him enough as it was, I’m pretty sure. Take that whole clusterfuck with Nero. Kirk had screwed up plenty on that one as well, but no one even thought of touching him, never mind dragging him through a court-martial. Spock was an easy target, and partly I’m responsible for that. I made him vulnerable. In the eyes of Starfleet Command, I made him seem less than he was. It’s the unfair way life works out sometimes. Our association was building up my reputation and destroying his.

He didn’t know that, and if I’d tried to explain, he wouldn’t have listened. He’d felt too much, anathema as it is for a Vulcan. He was in too deep. He wouldn’t have listened to anything, except for me saying that I didn’t want him anymore. 

And so I did.

They say karma is a bitch, but I don’t think they know the half of it. It comes to me in bits and pieces over the years, premonition and retrospect all mixed up and blurring along the lines until I can practically taste it. My beautiful Vulcan lover and the life I refused to live. The roads not taken.

I wonder what to call him now. Not a friend, definitely, not with the way he still looks at me. I wonder what we’d have been like if Spock ever let me come down from that pedestal he’d put me on. Back then, he gave in willingly, but I never kid myself about these things. I’d taken advantage. Of him and of the generations of mentor-worshipping culture encoded in his DNA. The galactic equivalent of the Greek ideal, the older, wiser lover and the young and malleable beloved. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret it, and I would do it all over again. But I don’t fool myself about possessing any kind of integrity.

God, but Spock was young then. It was written all over his face. Teachers, instructors, captains – we’re used to dealing with that kind of thing, because it happens all the time. Students and subordinates develop crushes. It’s natural, it happens. If they let us ignore it, we do, even if no one else does. If they are forward, we smile politely, tell them we’re flattered, and keep our distance. Go on record, if necessary, to protect them and ourselves. I’d done it before Spock, and, incredibly, I had to do it a few times after.

Spock, though. Spock was the one person I couldn’t ignore. 

I have told myself a lot of tales over the years. Men need to do that sometimes in order to be able to sleep at night. I told myself that Spock was a deadly combination of looks, intelligence, ability, maturity, and innocence. That he was so obvious yet so humble about his crush. That he was half-human and it provided an excuse to look for opportunities there that otherwise wouldn’t be open. That I would dare anyone alive to resist that quiet light of admiration in his eyes…

I believed my own tales for a while but never for good. They were true, all of those things. But it’s also true that I’d never lost my head so completely as to stop seeing the forest for the trees. So when instead of waiting, I reached out and plucked that apple, still just short of fully ripe, from the tree, I knew all along what I was doing. It was love, yes. But Spock was Vulcan, and I was playing with fire.

I was incredibly lucky with him. I don’t believe I realized until years later just how lucky. When it all blew up in my face – of course it had, that was inevitable – he didn’t pack his bags and go to Vulcan, and considering what happened to the planet later, that would have been a death sentence. He didn’t try to kill himself or hurt himself. He mentioned Gol once, and it was touch and go for a moment, but that boy proved to be stronger than I gave him credit for. I told him not to go, and he listened because he’d never closed off from me completely.

If there’s one thing that I will always be grateful for, it’s that by the grace of God he didn’t let me ruin his life. I was damn lucky.

Our later years at the Academy were a bittersweet kind of state. I could almost see us carry on indefinitely with Number One as my counterpoint, at the Academy and later on the _Enterprise_. But then, of course, Nero happened. And Kirk.

Looking back, it amazes me how blind I had been. Spock was still remarkably open with me, heaven knows why, but I couldn’t hear him. Such is the curse of Jim Kirk that he eclipses everything and everyone once he enters your orbit. It was then that I had lost the sight of Spock for good. I let him slip through my fingers because, like a baby who doesn’t know any better, I was distracted by a newer, shinier object. That it wasn’t the same in nature didn’t matter. It had to hurt just as much. And when I resurfaced, wondering what the hell had gotten into me, Spock was gone in every sense but the physical.

Kirk. Hell, I don’t know if I had done something incredibly good or unspeakably horrible in my past life to get so entangled with this family in this one. I still don’t know if it had done anyone any good. First, getting swept up in the nimbus of the Winona-George-Arina explosion; and just standing on the sidelines – very, very distant sidelines of that one was enough for anybody. But no, I had to be the one who fished George Kirk’s kid out of the gutter, because I couldn’t help myself.

Jim. Jim isn’t as smart as everyone believes him to be, and I stand by that. The boy was an idiot when I met him, and from what I could tell he remained in that state for a while. But in one thing he has always been smarter than me, and that’s a harder blow for my ego than him being better at four-dimensional strategy. 

He could always see Spock. From the moment they met, even if Jim hadn’t known it at the time, he could always see Spock for who he was, and he’d never lost sight of that. 

Looking back, I realize that for me Spock had always been a character in a play, a role I cast him in. Sweet kid with a crush, dutiful officer, ever-forgiving lover. I never saw him the way Kirk saw him – as just himself, with all the grace and pitfalls included. 

Why does an asshole – and I say this with love – but why does an asshole like Jim get to be so smart about this? I don’t know. I suppose they _are_ soulmates. Have to be. Either that, or Spock has a fetish for starship captains, which – yeah, is a really cheap joke, I’m sorry. You can tell I’m a bit bitter about this, despite it all.

Kirk and Spock. It doesn’t make sense, and yet for that precise reason it does. Neither of them are boys anymore, and I can tell already that in the annals of Starfleet history they will both outshine me. I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, it means that I’ve done my job right. 

Kirk will always be in the spotlight; Spock will always walk in the shadows. Do I have a problem with that? I know Spock doesn’t. He prefers it that way, it leaves him more room for maneuver, and he’s never been after fame. Those who matter will know. Unfortunately, those who matter will, first and foremost, include the Klingons, the Romulans, the Tholians, and every other galactic power that we’ve managed to piss off. Eventually, some of them will realize what a weapon those two could be against each other. God help us all when that day comes.

Do I feel responsible for that? No. Kirk and Spock have made their own choices. They know this, just as I know this. Do I trust them to put Federation first? Unbelievably, yes. Maybe I shouldn’t. I wouldn’t have trusted myself under similar circumstances, and I hope they will never have to test each other to destruction, but yes. I trust them to do the right thing, even when the cost is the other half of their soul.

All things considered, I would rather die than trade places with Jim Kirk.

And Spock… God. Even if no stray disruptor shot gets them, the human lifespan is a third of Vulcan. There will not be another Jim for Spock. He’ll have other lovers, sure. He must. Vulcan biology… the number of inappropriate jokes about it is directly proportionate to the rate at which it scares us shitless. He’ll have to take lovers. He may even have to bond again, and wow, think about that slow torture – for himself and some innocent bystander. But you only meet your soulmate once, and after he’s gone…

Fuck. I’m not a sentimental man, not by a long shot, but this twists me up inside. 

When Jim dies, will Spock be at risk then? He’ll be tempted. I can’t even imagine how he’ll be tempted. But I’m pretty sure he’ll choose life. He’s never taken an easy way out or the path of the least resistance in his life. He’s not wired that way.

Spock will keep on working without a shadow hiding his actions this time. He’ll be alive and active, leading projects, commanding missions, reshaping the galaxy long after his bondmate will have become a chapter in the history books. Three human generations will stand between him and Jim. Over a century and a half. Jesus.

I’ll be a couple of paragraphs in the chapter preceding Kirk’s. Will Spock ever think about those pages? When face-to-face with a scale like that, can I believe my own arrogance of ever daring to touch him? The planet he was born on will be history, his parents legends of the past, along with every human being he right now calls a friend. 

He’ll be better equipped to make new friends after we’re collectively done with him, but will he want to? Spock has always been more loyal than logical. His one undeniable fault. 

I hope you realize this, Jim. I hope you pack these years with so much they’ll be bursting at the seams, because the memories you make today will be all that is left for him after you punch out. I hope you don’t waste time. 

I look at the message again. Why on Earth would McCoy send me this? No, that’s unfair. I know why. I just don’t know if I would have preferred to be surprised. 

The notification is a courtesy and doesn’t require my approval. But if I could, I’d have written ‘Good luck’ all over it. Good luck, Jim. I mean it.

And Spock? Pour me a drink from that cup when it overflows for you.


End file.
